


First and Foremost, Red

by RC_McLachlan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Infinity Gems, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 07:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16828387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan
Summary: There's a reason Jane and Thor break up. It's not a great one but it's the right one. In the year that follows, Jane carries on, doesn't win a Nobel Prize, defeats Thanos and saves the universe, and finally allows herself to be a little selfish.





	First and Foremost, Red

The All-Father himself shows up on Jane’s doorstep at, like, six in the morning on a random Tuesday, wearing a ratty bathrobe and in serious need of a shower. She suddenly feels better about the fact that she’s not wearing a bra under her shirt. Well, Thor’s shirt.  
  
“They evacuated the nursing home and I slept under a bridge before I recalled that you resided in the next town over” is a sentence she never expected to come out of the mouth of a veritable god, and yet here they are. Instead of asking the many questions she has (most of them starting with “what” and “the fuck”), she hustles him inside and gets him seated on the couch with a mug of the really good coffee (sent weekly by Tony Stark, because “minds like ours need high test, pangolin, you’ll see what I’m talking about”).  
  
“At least you Midgardians can do one thing right,” Odin rumbles as he drains his coffee in a single go, because like father like son, and the son is a champion mead drinker on several worlds. It physically pains Jane to give Odin any more of it, because it comes by the ounce and not by the can, and it’s going to be another six days before her next coffee delivery arrives.  
  
Odin asks if they can watch The Price Is Right. The nursing home had him follow a pretty strict routine and he hates deviating from it.  
  
Seriously, _what_.  
  
While Drew Carey explains the rules of Lucky Seven to a contestant named Linda—who has the chance to win a new truck if she’s left holding a dollar by the end of the game—Jane finally can’t hold it in anymore and blurts out "Thor’s gone this week. Hunting for more Infinity Stones. Since the thing with Malekith, we’ve been searching for more, but, uh, he should be back by Friday.”  
  
Odin nods sagely and says that Linda should choose 4 as her next guess.  
  
This is the man who once compared her to a goat. Now he’s yelling at the TV because Linda picked 9.  
  
“Is there someone I can, uh, call…? Or I can make reservations at a hotel for you until he’s back. Not that I don’t want you here!” She really doesn’t. “It’s just that our guest room is basically a closet. Thor keeps all his HomeGoods finds in it.”  
  
There are more random glass sculptures than anyone should legally be allowed to have in that room, as well as a four feet-tall cast iron anteater, which not going in their bedroom, no matter how much Thor wants their guests to admire what he’s deemed the finest offering of Midgardian craftsmanship.  
  
“I am here for _you_.” For a hot second, she thinks Odin’s talking to Drew Carey. But he turns that creepy one-eyed stare upon her and her skin tries to crawl off her bones to escape it; she swallows and forces herself to meet his gaze. She already knows that she's going to hate what comes next.  
  
She's not wrong. Odin tells her that the end of all things is coming. He tells her that if Thor can’t stop it, no world will be spared. He tells her of Hela, the first born. He tells her of Thanos Star-Eater. And then he tells her what she’d thought this was all about: that she and Thor can’t be together.  
  
But before she can open her mouth to object, Odin says quietly, “This is bigger than you and what you share with my son. Billions upon billions upon billions of lives teeter on the edge of a knife, and all that stands between them and death is the hope that Thor’s mind is unclouded enough to act—and that will never happen until you are not at the forefront. I beg you not out of pettiness, Jane Foster, for though you are not the partner of whom I approve, neither can I deny the impact you have made upon my son. I beg you out of desperation. The end is coming, and you cannot be selfish.”  
  
They watch the rest of the episode in silence. Linda doesn’t make it to the end.  
  
As soon as The Price Is Right outro theme begins to play, Odin adds, “I have walked through his dreams and begun sowing the seeds of discontent. Whether you act first or not, your union will crumble.”  
  
Thor had been particularly antsy to leave this time around. Normally whenever he leaves, be it for another realm or to run down to the grocery store because they finally restocked Friendly’s Sundae Xtreme ice cream, he pushes her up against whatever will hold them and kiss her until she’s robbed of all cogent thought. This time, he gave her a perfunctory kiss and swanned out the door. Jane closes her eyes and whispers, “Of course you did, you son of a bitch.”  
  
And she wants to rail against what he’s started, what he’s asking of her, but she’s spent all her life searching for proof of what’s at stake. Odin’s right. It would be the most selfish thing she’s ever done if she refuses. A broken heart is nothing when weighed against actual lives.  
  
There’s nothing left to say. Odin flips through the channels while Jane sits there and tries to breathe around the scream bubbling in her throat. When Odin lands on that show about people catching catfish with their arms, he asks if they can order a pizza. Jane calls it in. She doesn’t eat a single slice, instead excusing herself to bed while Odin watches late-night TV. In the bedroom, she slips on the ragged plaid shirt that Thor refuses to take off when he’s bumming around the apartment, and crawls into bed on his side. Thor’s pillow smells like the cheap shampoo he loves—Strawberry Blast. She cries until dawn.  
  
In the morning, she pours Odin a bowl of cornflakes and milk, which he eats by spooning the cereal into his mouth and chasing it with the milk. He polishes off three more bowls, wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his honestly disgusting robe, and announces that he is going to go. At the door, he thanks her for her hospitality. She doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing.  
  
Odin places a hand on her shoulder and murmurs, “Perhaps it will not mean anything to you, but I am—” but she can’t hear his bullshit platitudes and fake sorries, so she steps back and hoarsely bites out, “I need for you to leave now.” And miracle of miracles, he does.  
  
Outside comes the agitated baying of crows.  
  
The rest of the week passes by in a blur. She finishes a project for SHIELD but can't say what it is that she actually accomplished. Time oozes like an open wound. Friday rolls around and Thor comes home. There’s a loose board in the floor of the foyer that squeaks as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, uncharacteristically hesitant. He used to kick the door down and shout for all and sundry to hear that he had returned and wanted to spend the next two days in bed. He doesn’t say anything. Not even an “I’m home.” Because Odin planted seeds that have grown into forests and Thor isn’t and has never been a liar. Jane sits in the living room, chin on her knees, and breathes.  
  
And breathes.  
  
And pushes herself to her feet to go meet him in the foyer. Thor smiles at her, but it’s small and filled with regret, and he glances around the apartment they share, the home they’ve made together, like it’s unfamiliar to him. Like he didn’t frame and hang those Valhalla posters from Etsy on the walls, or insist on buying that metal bowl by the door to fill with mittens for any guests who might need them.  
  
“Jane,” he begins, and it sounds like an ending.  
  
And she can’t be selfish, not knowing all that she does, so when Thor haltingly tries to do the whole “it’s me not you” thing, she helps him out by agreeing that their relationship has run its course, that she understands completely why he wants things to end because she feels the same way, and it’s all so amicable and kind and earnest that she waits to throw up until he goes to pack. She gags into the toilet bowl but it’s mostly nothing because Odin ate all the cornflakes.  
  
Two hours later, Thor has two duffel bags of his things tossed over one shoulder like a sweater, and he suggests that Jane donate everything in the HomeGoods closet. She laughs and sounds convincing even to her own ears when she promises that she will.  
  
He bends down.  
  
_Please don’t, I won’t survive it_ , she thinks wildly as he brushes his lips against the corner of her mouth. He smells like fake strawberries and starlight. She bites the inside of her cheek so hard it bleeds.  
  
“Goodbye, Jane. I cannot begin to thank you for all you have done for me. There will never be anyone quite like you. I-I will always…” Thor trails off and then just stares at her, a little baffled, like he doesn’t know why he’s doing any of this. Like he’s forgotten why he’s leaving.  
  
“Thor—”  
  
_I love you, I love you, don’t go, don’t leave, I love you._ _  
_ _  
_ Don’t be selfish, Jane.  
  
She smiles and doesn’t beg him to stay. “There aren’t words for… any of this, Thor. I will always love you. Always. Take care of yourself, okay? Just… take care of yourself.”  
  
He gathers her close. He smells so good and she fits so well into his arms. It’s her favorite place to be, and that this is the last time that she’ll ever be there doesn’t make a lick of sense, because he promised her forever.  
  
She hopes he can’t hear the desperate pounding of her heart, making a liar out of her, but he disentangles himself from the embrace, flashes her one last smile, and is gone.  
  
So she calls Darcy.  
  
At some point Darcy bursts in carrying a bag full of clinking bottles and another bag full of family-sized bags of Doritos. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. You’d think a grid system would be easy to navigate, especially since London’s all fucking horse paths, but Siri apparently forgot what it’s like to be back in New York because she got me lost on 23rd and—Jane? Jane, tell me that you haven’t been standing there since he left.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Jane admits. It’s possible that she’s been standing there forever.  
  
“Okay, Janey.” It’s weird to hear Darcy sound so sad. “Okay.”  
  
The next afternoon, when Jane is finally sober enough to put together a coherent sentence, she looks over at Darcy—who looks fresh as a fucking daisy—and asks what happened after they killed the first bottle of wine, because there's just a blank hole there.  
  
“You drank a fifth of vodka and played that song from Pretty Woman on repeat for almost two hours, then you went outside and shouted for Heimdall to open the Bifrost so you could egg Thor’s house.”  
  
Jane blinks and looks skyward, then immediately regrets it, because _ow_ . “Did you promise to fight Thor on my behalf or am I making that up?"  
  
“I’m gonna fight him on live TV, too,” Darcy agrees viciously, which seems so out of step because Darcy never blamed Thor for his three-year absence, but Jane vaguely recalls Darcy saying something about castration so justified that no jury on any planet would convict her. “And I’m gonna win.”  
  
At Jane’s incredulous stare, Darcy shrugs and says, “Girl code.”  
  
After that, life goes on.  
  
That first week Jane allows herself an hour a day for crying and feeling sorry for herself. The following week, she gives herself 45 minutes. The next, half an hour, and so on until she can make it through the day without breaking down at all. They say that time heals all wounds, but it doesn’t. It does make them a bit smaller, though.  
  
But there are times where Jane will lie in bed on _his_ side and cuddle the sweatshirt he forgot to pack, and think about where he is and what he’s doing. Who he’s with. Sometimes she imagines the life they might have had together. Maybe they would have married—a small affair in the desert where this all began or a huge fancy blow-out on the catwalk at Arecibo. Maybe they would have made their own stars, forged in the cosmic kiln of her belly, with Thor’s ridiculous golden locks and her boring brown eyes and his hunger for battle and hers for the unknown. Or a dog. One big enough to ride, just for him.  
  
She thinks about what she would say if he ever came back. If she were someone else, she'd listen to his groveling before crushing him beneath cold words and an even colder heart, but even in her own mind the better, stronger version of her takes him back. Jane was never in search of someone to complete her; she’s completed herself for as long as she can remember. A complement, though, is infinitely rarer and more precious, and she had found the grail in Thor. To have lost him isn’t like missing a limb, but her life is so very much less full now. A remnant of what it had been. A black dwarf.  
  
Like he’d said: there will never be another quite like him. She will learn to live with it.  
  
Time passes. Jane reads about the Accords on the Washington Post on her phone and is half-watching the press conference when the king of Wakanda is killed. About a week later, Tony Stark comes knocking on her door and crashes on her couch. He looks like he’s seven or eight minutes away from death. He tells her he all but adopted a teenage spider and that he and Pepper have decided to end things for good, because apparently surprise proposals don’t make good red herrings for the media. She saw that press conference too. She’s never cringed so much in one sitting. They spend the entire weekend eating pizza bagels and binge watching _Black Mirror_. Not once does either of them bring up the big, beefy blond that walked out of their life.  
  
More time passes. She’s sleeping through the night now. Erik tells her that she's been nominated for the Nobel in Astrophysics for her work in proving the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory, and that December she loses to a tiny, adorable Kazakh woman who knows everything there is to know about magnetohydrodynamics, and isn’t even mad about it. As a consolation prize, she gets invited to the Stark STEM Fundraiser Gala and only fights Darcy a little about going.  
  
“You are going to chop off that rat’s nest you call hair and rock an incredible gown and then make out with a hundred hot science dudes. I’ll know if you don’t. I have eyes everywhere. If you spend more than five minutes hiding by the caviar, I will call Victor Von Doom and have him bring the whole place down.”  
  
Darcy gives credence to her threat by showing Jane Doom’s number in her phone. He’s listed as Less Good Iron Man.  
  
Jane ends up getting her hair cut to her shoulders and gets layers and bangs that she immediately regrets, and she goes to the gala dressed in a crimson floor-length gown that flows like water and swirls around her feet when she walks. She’s even wearing _lipstick_ —a brand that Darcy swore wouldn’t come off without turpentine. She feels beautiful, and in a moment of weakness she wishes that Thor was here to see her. Wishes he could share in the joy of where she is today.  
  
She hopes he’s safe. She hopes he did what she asked and is taking care of himself.  
  
About halfway through the gala, while she’s trying to appear interested in some hot science dude’s entirely _wrong_ ideas about the Schwarzschild Metric, the main doors burst open and two men desperately push their way through throngs of people, one of them shouting to know where Jane Foster is.  
  
“Excuse me for a second,” she says to Hot Science Dude before running to meet them by the hors d'oeuvres table.  
  
Tony’s armor is either melted to his skin or is somehow _part_ of him, but it’s broken and smashed in several places, and it looks like his left arm is entirely useless. Next to him, breathing heavily, is—  
  
“Aren’t you _dead_ ,” Jane demands incredulously, and Loki gives her what would be an impressive glare if he weren’t hemorrhaging from a massive head wound. She wants to slap him across his stupid face anyway. Thor spent weeks mourning him—and not the kind of loud sobbing that comes when he watches _WALL-E_ , but silent, bitter tears of loss under the cover of night.  
  
Loki holds up what looks like a steampunk/Harry Winston mashup gone horribly wrong and snarls, “This beautiful idiot seems to be under the impression that you might know a way to dismantle this, so here we are. Right now, if you would be so kind. He’ll be here soon.”  
  
Tony bats his eyes. “Aww, you think I’m beautiful?”  
  
She opens her mouth to shout that she has no idea what the thing even is or who “he” is when there comes a tugging in her cerebrospinal fluid, a child pulling at her shirt in a bid to be acknowledged, and she looks at the row of gemstones buried in gaudy gold until her gaze lands on the ruby. No, it’s not a ruby.  
  
_Hello_ , it seems to say, and her blood shudders at the memory of how it invaded her veins, pushed its way into every crevice, every corner of her, forcing out the marrow in her bones and staking its claim. It knows her down to her atoms. As if answering the question she’s too afraid to ask, it dissolves into the bloody mist she knows so well and rises up to meet her outstretched fingertips, licking at them in greeting.  
  
“Tell me those aren't—” But one look at Tony’s exhausted, stone-cold expression is all she needs to know.  
  
The infinity stones.  
  
She slowly wiggles her fingers, watching the Aether twist and play between them, and exhales. “How did you get them?”  
  
“Doublemint here stole his glove.”  
  
Jane blinks and tears her attention away from the Aether, because _what_. “Whose glove?”  
  
“It is a long and interesting tale, full of failure and certain death, but Stark is under the impression that you have the knowledge to dismantle it,” Loki says airily. He sounds like a rubber band stretched too thin, on the verge of breaking. “The others will not be able to hold him back for long. Time is somewhat of the essence.”  
  
She knows that she has the most confused look on her face, because Tony snaps, “Don’t you check your damn phone? Wakandan army mobilized and fighting in Africa and Europe? Big world-ending skirmish in the middle of Boston? The entire city’s gone!”  
  
“There’s a big world-ending skirmish every other week! My New York Times alert didn’t even go off!” Although Darcy’s text tone had been going off like crazy in Jane’s purse about an hour ago. In Jane’s defense, Darcy said she was going to binge-watch _M*A*S*H*_ and live-text Jane all her reactions, so it seemed prudent to ignore her entirely.  
  
“New York!” Loki shouts. “The one who instigated the Chitauri in New York! That’s who is here.”  
  
“You mean _you_.”  
  
“No, not him,” Tony says urgently, glancing over his shoulder with more fear than should ever be on anyone's face, particularly his. “Big bad alien with a big bad alien army. We need you to dismantle the gauntlet before he gets here and takes it back and, you know, undoes reality. Or whatever he wants with it. What _does_ he want with it?” Tony directs the question to Loki, who’s obviously very done with this entire universe.  
  
“To unmake everything and forge something in his own image,” Loki says tonelessly, then sighs like he wants nothing more than to sink to the floor and stay there. For a long stretch of a moment, their eyes meet, and all she can see is his utter hopelessness. He doesn’t think he’s going to survive this time. Jane has the horrible urge to hug him.  
  
“What makes you think I can even…? Tony, I don’t even know _what_ these are. Having the Aether in me didn’t make me an expert!”  
  
“You proved the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory!”  
  
“Because one almost _totaled my car!_ ”  
  
The gala-goers are all starting to stare and murmur, but when they take out their phones to snap pictures of them, their attention is obviously snagged by the alerts and texts from their loved ones about what’s happening. Someone starts screaming. Others start crying. Jane feels a tension headache starting in her jaw.  
  
“Jane? Janey, bright spark in the sky, love of my life, keeper of all the brains?” Tony snaps the fingers of his right hand in her face. Since he’s still in the Iron Man suit, it creates sparks. “C'mon, c'mon. Time’s a-wastin’! Also, it’s not lost on me that you had one of these bad boys inside you and I’m only hearing about this now. You’ve been holding out on me, Foster. I thought we were _bros_. We bonded. We shared ice cream spoons and everything.”  
  
Loki growls something unintelligible and just shoves the big golden glove into her arms. It’s practically the size of an four-year old kid, but it’s lighter than air. As soon as her hand cups it so the stupid thing doesn’t fall to the floor, a vibration starts up under her palm, humming loudly. Light limns the outline of her fingers.  
  
_Worthy_ . It drifts like smoke across the backs of her eyes, and she shudders, ready to toss the thing away, but then the Hulk comes slamming through the giant dome ceiling and into the floor. A literal crater opens up.  
  
Tony throws himself over her and protects her from flying debris and bits of stone. The entire gala erupts into chaos—people screaming and running from the scene, people screaming and calling for help from where they’re crushed under stone, people just screaming in general. Some of the Avengers—and a bunch of other people that she doesn’t recognize—all come down through the giant hole in the ceiling and immediately go into their fighting stances. One guy in a ridiculous cape is floating. There’s also a giant Ent and a raccoon with a huge weapon slung over its shoulder.  
  
“I’m gonna kick some giant purple ass,” the raccoon shouts, cocking its gun gleefully.  
  
Jane can’t help but stare. “Did that raccoon just—”  
  
“That’s Rocket,” Tony says with glee. “He’s my new best friend.”  
  
“Fuck you, Stark!” The raccoon calls.  
  
Jane lets her eyes wander and the blood in her veins freezes at the sight of familiar epaulets holding up a red cloak. The first thing she thinks is, _Holy shit, he cut his hair. It looks incredible_. The second is, _Thank every god, he’s okay, wait where’s his eye?_ Then her meandering train of thought derails when an incredible-looking woman in armor gives Thor a rakish, intimate grin, nudging him with an elbow almost playfully, which he returns gladly. They both look like they’ve been through the wringer and loved every second of it.  
  
She glances over to where some poor guy’s legs stick out from under a huge chunk of stone. There’s a small river of blood oozing out from beneath it. _Same, buddy._  
  
Don’t be selfish, Jane.  
  
Suddenly something starts beeping wildly and the Iron Man face mask shuts with a bang. Tony shouts, “Shit, incoming!” as he hikes Jane under his right arm and, screaming, forces his left into motion to grab Loki, blasting away just as the rest of the ceiling caves in.  
  
Tony gets hit mid-flight, but he spins around and takes the brunt of the impact, which still jars Jane’s teeth. Also, she thinks she may have a broken rib. Breathing hurts like a bitch. And she somehow had the wherewithal to keep hold of the stupid glove, because it’s still clutched in her arms like a baby.  
  
“Ow, fuck. Not to alarm anyone, but I think I broke my neck.” Tony’s arm goes slack around her waist, and she slides to the floor next to him. There’s something metallic and wet in her mouth, bubbling up in her throat. Oh good, the rib must’ve punctured a lung.  
  
“Stark, if I were not already entangled in a romantic arrangement with a cosmic sex fiend, I would feel very indebted to you right now,” Loki says. The words positively drip lust. The effect is somewhat ruined when he heartlessly shoves Tony’s left arm off of him and pushes to his feet. Tony howls in pain.  
  
Loki thrusts out a hand for Jane to take. “I’m sorry, but we have to go before—”  
  
And then Loki’s gone. One minute he’s there, the next the foundation shakes as he hits a wall. She doesn’t see it, but she hears it.  
  
“I don’t care for people taking my things without asking.” It’s said so gently, so congenially, that for a second Jane thinks it’s her own father jokingly scolding her for borrowing his telescope without permission. Except her father’s been dead for years and a giant purple man-thing looms over her, sinister promise etched onto his horrible face.  
  
In her arms, the gauntlet hums.  
  
She used to daydream about her death when she was in middle school, would keep a list of the clever and ridiculous ways it would happen. Her favorite was being spaghetti-fied in a black hole. Down the sides of all her science papers were doodles of her body elongated and twisted into loops and weird shapes. The runner-up was decapitation on Space Mountain. Mr. Trent used to deduct two points from her work for the drawings, citing mental cruelty. Mrs. Crumbine thought they were funny as hell.  
  
But a mad titan grinning down at her, reaching down to crush her, never made the list. Maybe she just didn’t have the imagination back then.  
  
She coughs a protest when the gauntlet is plucked from her grasp, but it’s all moot anyway. Her neck and shoulders are engulfed by a huge hand, fingers curling around her, and she knows she only has seconds left. She’s going to die here.  
  
From very far away, someone is screaming her name.  
  
“You think you’re fit to wield the gauntlet? You’re nothing.” Cheerfully, the grip around her tightens until she feels something pop, and then the world dissolves into mist.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Except.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
There is Red in her veins, in her eyes, and Purple in the spaces between the stars, and an infinite number of Orange strings refract from a single point and vibrate with purpose. Yellow in her fingertips, ready for change. Blue in her mind, in the minds of everyone and everything. Green in her ribs, her lung, her father’s stopped heart, her mother’s cancerous cells. But first and foremost, Red. It was the first and it is the strongest and it lives in the hearts of both the living, the dead, and neither.  
  
_Gold cannot hold us_ , Purple says.  
  
_The unworthy cannot wield us_ , Yellow hums.  
  
_It is not the fist that boasts a weapon_ , murmurs Green.  
  
_But the mind_ , sings Blue.  
  
_From the first to the last breath, it has always been the mind_ , Orange gentles.  
  
_A gauntlet for a fist_ , Red whispers. _A crown for the mind_.  
  
_For you, who is not Star-Eater._ _  
_ _  
_ _But Star-Learner._ _  
_ _  
_ _You, who is Worthy._ _  
_ _  
_ The gauntlet pulls apart and shifts, twists, reforms itself into something kinder, something just for her, and she plucks the diadem from the air and places it upon her head.  
  
The mad titan lets loose a roar that shakes the skies, and Jane is Red and suddenly free, at the mercy of the air—but no. The air is at _her_ mercy. The laws of gravity are just guidelines by which she doesn’t have to abide, and she doesn’t want to, so she doesn’t. She doesn’t have to abide by anything, not if she doesn’t want to, because she can do and make and change and stop everything and anything, for everything and anything belong to her. She knows all, sees all, does all.  
  
Tony is dying, and she twitches her fingers and he is whole. Loki is dying, and then he is not. They are all of them in pain, suffering for the good of the world, and she takes it away.  
  
A fist missing a gauntlet moves faster than light, but she is Red and therefore faster than both and so lifts a hand to stop it with a gentle press of her fingers, and from her touch inertia and action potential bend and wait for her to make a decision.  
  
She is Orange and sees that the titan means to do just as Loki said and remake reality to suit his own purpose. In a million different shards of light he sits as death made manifest upon a throne made of the bones of the worlds he has destroyed, and half of the universe is an empty graveyard, and his fist is a golden weapon.  
  
Inhale, exhale, and stars live and die and quake and shrink, and every single one of them buzzes in her skull like trapped bees and oh, the bees, and they are so unique and all-encompassing, and she loves them terribly. And she is Green and she reaches out to paint her judgment upon his chest, snuffing out the dim light that still lingers in his soul, rendering him a white dwarf without heat or light.  
  
And she is Purple, pulling him into fractions, base components, and she is everywhere, scattering him into the hearts of every living star, and she is Orange, and she puts him in the before, the now, the soon-to-be, at the very start of this universe and in all the ones that came before, and the ones that have not yet to pass. He wanted a piece of himself in every corner of every universe—his wish is granted.  
  
He will never be whole. He will never be put back together again, and so he fades from existence as if he had never been. And without him, his armies crumble to dust.  
  
She inhales, and is Red, and Red calls to all of them, and so she is all of them, and there are galaxies in her lungs and possibility on her tongue. She could change it all for the better. She could eradicate pain and suffering, bigotry and hatred. She could pull rain into the desert and call forth trees in wastelands. She could stretch across worlds and lifetimes and sow the seeds of hope.  
  
“Jane.”  
  
And Orange and Red and Blue and Green and Yellow and Purple breathe together, and suddenly Thor is before her—not the one staring from the ground, but the one who is possible, the one who could be.  
  
He cups her cheek in his hand and murmurs, “This is a gift we offer you, Star-Learner, to ease the pain in the matter between worlds and your own heart. Odin True-Guesser cannot touch you or this union; cannot break the bond. Above all else, you wish nothing more than for him to look at you and smile again. We offer it gladly.”  
  
She looks down and there's Thor, the one she loves so much that she let him go, and she could take this offer and make it so that awful moment in the foyer of their little New York apartment never happened, anywhere, anywhen. They could be together.  
  
And she cannot keep hold of the shard of her sitting with the All-Father, trying desperately to stop herself from shattering as he told her to break her own heart for the greater good. She cannot keep the world from watching her cry into the one sweatshirt Thor forgot to pack, clutching it to her face, desperate to keep his smell where it clung to collar, to keep him, her complement, for one moment longer. She cannot stop them from seeing him bend down to kiss her among a rain of petals and stars, sealing the vows they had made to each other, in a perfect moment that never happened. She cannot contain the bubbles of her children’s laughter, joyously shrieking as their father picks them up like gravity can’t touch them, like they were real to begin with.  
  
They all see it, her weaknesses, her heartbreak. _He_ sees it.  
  
Thor stares up at her, shock chasing realization across his face, and she is Blue and feels the truth of their break settle in his bones. Feels the horror and guilt as he replays her flippant agreement as he suggested an ending to their story.  
  
She could have him now. She could take this offer and they could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything. She could have everything she’s ever wanted. Together, they could end the pains of this universe and make it _better_.  
  
She could.  
  
But.  
  
She is Red, which bolsters the others, and worlds within worlds upon worlds inhale as she makes the only choice that can ever be, will ever be, has ever been.  
  
She gazes into that beloved face, the real one, and then gently lifts the diadem from her head. “It’s all I want. A life with Thor is _everything_ I want… but I can’t be selfish.”  
  
Her fingers loosen and the diadem drips like water to the floor.  
  
Breathing out, she is Jane Foster, astrophysicist, human disaster, and done.  
  
“I can’t be selfish.”  
  
Blue and Yellow and Purple and Green and Orange and, yes, Red, all sigh as one.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_No._ _  
_ _  
_ _You are, and will always be, worthy._ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
_ She opens her eyes and inhales like it’s the last time, but her lungs are full of sweet, crisp air as pure as amnion. Pushing herself to her feet, she takes stock. Her body is whole, but she’s no longer at the Met, and no longer is she stretched through time and space. Instead, she’s standing on a grassy knoll in the most incredible place she's ever seen. From glowing, silver murk stretch leafless trees around which glittering bugs lazily circle, and flowers as exquisite as icing roses open and close, the veins of their petals lit up like Christmas. A great beast, like a whale with spider silk wings, glides overhead, singing a hauntingly beautiful song as it goes. She watches it disappear into watercolor clouds.  
  
This must be Heaven. Helpless to stop the smile tugging at her mouth, she turns…  
  
… and comes face to face with Odin.  
  
Oh, never mind. This must be the other place.  
  
“I must admit, it is not often that I am surprised, particularly by a Midgardian.” Odin looks at her like he always did: as though she isn’t fit to breathe his air, and like he might be a bit constipated. “But you removed the gauntlet.”  
  
“Crown,” she corrects him, because she’s a dumbass.  
  
A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth like a dog yanking on a toy, and he inclines his head. “A most impressive one—for a sovereign chosen by the powers that made existence. You could have changed reality, and yet you rejected it.”  
  
Jane purses her lips and watches the whale thing cut slowly through the clouds, its thousand-finned tail stirring up a gentle breeze that smells like raspberries. It’s almost laughable, the idea that she was given the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. She couldn’t keep a goldfish alive.  
  
“I almost didn’t,” she admits, because for a moment the temptation was so great that she was going to reach out to take that Thor, the gift, by the hand and leave to go build castles in the sky. “But then I looked around and I thought, ‘Why is it wrong for Thanos to remake reality but okay for me? What makes me deserving? It shouldn't… It shouldn’t be okay for anyone to make those kinds of choices. No one person should have that kind of power. Not me, not him, not any of us.”  
  
Her nose burns and her eyes go hot, and she closes them and sniffles, and whispers, “I didn’t want to be selfish.”  
  
The whale thing’s haunting melody sinks through the clouds and takes up residence in her chest, and she curls around the ache of it, those desolate nights in her empty bed made manifest in song.  
  
A hand, scarred by war and softened by love, nudges into hers, and Odin gently squeezes as he draws her into his arms.  
  
“I do not regret much in my life,” he says into her hair. He smells like metal. Like space. “I have made many mistakes but I have found reason for most of them; I cannot find it in me to excuse what I said to you that day. You offered me hospitality and I ordered you to tear apart your own life, and for what? My first born still destroyed Asgard and the mad titan still came to collect what he thought was his due. It prevented nothing.”  
  
For a cranky old god, he’s surprisingly huggable. Kind of like her dad. She closes her eyes and sinks into it.  
  
“You did not allow my folly to break you,” Odin murmurs, “and you did not allow the lure of the stones to best you. You sacrificed your happiness for the sake of others on the word of one you knew did not have your best interests at heart, and you willingly relinquished ultimate power. I regret all that I have done to you, Jane Foster, but nothing as much as I regret implying that you are selfish.”  
  
If this were a movie, she would pull away, bestow a kind smile upon him, and gently thank him for his apology, maybe throw in a quip or two.  
  
She bursts into big, ugly tears instead.  
  
Odin shushes her like a child and tightens his hold on her, and a breeze licks at her hot, swollen eyes, beckoning her. She looks over his shoulder and—  
  
Standing a few feet away, awash in gold, Frigga smiles, and it’s the warm spring wind that washes over wetlands and stirs the yellow flowers that Jane brings every Friday to the little stretch of swamp on the side of the highway nearest her in order to honor the mother of the man she loves. It’s probably weird that she still does it after the breakup, but she’s there every single Friday without fail, whispering apologies to the wind for not being able to save her.  
  
“You are a wonder, Jane Foster, but you do not yet belong to these halls,” Frigga says, positively glowing. “There is still much left for you to do, but I eagerly await the day that I will welcome you back. You will have the most spectacular stories to tell.”  
  
Odin places his hands on Jane’s shoulders and moves away, and leaves her to go join his queen at the edge of this strange, perfect world.  
  
“But for now, the story continues.” And then Odin does the craziest thing ever.  
  
He lowers his head and _bows_.  
  
Above them, the whale thing holds a note that sounds like the binding of atoms around molecular clouds, the birth of a star, and everything goes white.  
  
Then Blue. Green. Purple. Orange. Yellow.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Red._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
There’s a spark of consciousness, and swims slowly to the surface only to find herself in the middle of an earthquake, except, no, it’s just Thor shaking her shoulders so hard that her head feels like it’s going to pop off.  
  
“Jane! Jane, open your eyes! Please, don’t do this. Strange, jolt her heart again! You were a doctor, weren't?! Perhaps one more will be enough to—” His voice breaks, snaps clean in two, and there’s a struggle, like someone trying to pull him away but he fights them off. The movement jostles her. “Touch me again and I will _break_ that hand, Widow—”  
  
Someone sucks in a shaky breath. It almost sounds like the raccoon. “I don’t wanna be _that_ guy, but I don’t think she's…”  
  
“I will punt you seventy miles, I swear to god,” Tony snaps from somewhere above her. “She’s a fighter, okay? A little dust-up like this isn’t going to kill her. You've gotta know of some way to bring her back, Quill. Some wacky space thing? Elvira over here said that you’re a space god.”  
  
“ _Demi_ -god. Look, just because my dad was a gigantic douchebag planet doesn’t mean I get any special healing powers. Gamora, c'mon, don’t tell people about that—”  
  
Fingers fan out over her cheek, soft, and a woman with the breathiest voice Jane has ever heard shouts, “She is waking up!”  
  
With all the strength of a soaked kitten with a three-day hangover, Jane mumbles a protest and reaches up to bat Thor away.  
  
“Jane,” Thor breathes, and it’s the opposite of that day in the foyer. It rings out like daylight cresting a planetary curve. She opens her eyes and watches tears follow an already soaked path down his cheeks and into his beard. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does to have him look at her like this, but, well.  
  
“You… cut your hair.” It takes every single brain cell she possesses to get it out, but it makes a smile break over his face like the dawn.  
  
“I didn’t.” He swallows hard and blinks the tears away. One splashes her cheek and he hurriedly wipes it away with his thumb. “A drunk old man in prison did. You… You cut yours, as well.”  
  
“I got bangs.”  
  
“They… suit you.”  
  
“They really don’t.”  
  
A laugh bursts out of him, shaking his entire body, and he sucks in a breath that sounds like a sob. “No, they really don’t.”  
  
The man in the cape from before pushes Thor out of the way and places his hands on Jane’s chest, palpating the area. She'd slap him if it weren't so clinical. “Hello, Dr. Foster, I’m Dr. Stephen Strange. I have many questions for you, but let’s start with the most pressing: is there any pain when I push here? How about here?”  
  
By the time she’s back on her feet and the others are either surveying the damage or yelling over comm links to the missing Avengers, Natasha Romanov has deemed Jane strong enough to endure ribbing about her honestly shitty bangs. “I’ll give you the number of my wig maker,” Natasha says, and Jane laughs.  
  
“So what happened after I… ?” Jane looks around at the Met, which is basically a complete demolition nightmare. The Avengers and the people that introduced themselves as the Guardians of the Galaxy are starting to clear away the debris and the bodies. If Jane allows herself to stare at Thor, who’s hefting what looks like half a wall like it’s a pool noodle, a little longer than necessary, well… who can blame her? Look at his _arms_.  
  
But yikes. Someone’s going to have to pay so much money to fix this—and whatever happened overseas. Jane’s not entirely sure of anything about the other Avengers except Tony’s seething jealousy and arousal over Captain America’s beard. In the distance, she can hear Tony trying and failing to assure Steve that Thanos is actually dead.  
  
_“Steve? Steven. Honey pie, unclench for a sec and just watch what I sent T'Challa, would you? My suit caught the whole thing on video. And if you have any questions… direct them to someone who isn’t me. I have no idea what just happened.”_ _  
_ _  
_ Natasha Natasha makes an odd noise in the back of her throat, then says, with obvious care, “I didn’t see much, but… the, uh, other Thor kind of faded away and then the crown thing exploded into a rainbow and all the colors just kind of… flew off in different directions. Then you fell, but Strange managed to catch you before you hit the ground, and… well, you weren’t breathing for a long time and your heart wasn’t beating.”  
  
Jane blinks. “So, I was dead.”  
  
“Pretty much, yeah. Thor kind of lost it. It got very lightning-y in here for a while.”  
  
Come to think of it, the giant walking tree does look kind of crispy.  
  
“He wouldn’t let us come near you, not if we were going to give up on you. He performed CPR for a few minutes before Strange stepped in and had Tony jolt your heart a few times.” Natasha tilts her head thoughtfully. “Someone said something, I can’t remember who, but then Thor started throwing elbows and everyone got in on the squabbling. It felt like the airport in a lot of ways. After that, Thor didn’t leave your side. Even after it was kind of obvious you weren’t coming back.”  
  
Jane thinks of Odin’s kind, fatherly hug, and manages a shaky laugh. “Oh, you know me: I live to subvert expectations.”  
  
“You might want to take this opportunity to, you know, talk to him. It sounds like you have some things you should say.”  
  
Natasha doesn’t come right out and call the drive-in movie of Jane’s heartbreak and dreams really sad, but Jane gets the gist.  
  
“I’ll take her.”  
  
Natasha and Jane both turn as one and—it’s that woman, the incredible one from before. Jane is torn between tearfully wishing her and Thor every happiness and proving herself by walking over to the other side of the Met on her own (but Jane already knows she’s not going to make it ten feet without tripping and dying a second time).  
  
“Valkyrie.” Natasha punches the woman, Valkyrie, playfully on the arm, then ducks the fists that comes to return the favor.  
  
It wins a laugh out of Valkyrie. “I let you have that one, Spider.” To Jane, she grins and says, “Shall we?”  
  
Jane smiles. “I’d appreciate that.”  
  
Valkyrie puts an arm around the small of Jane’s back and takes Jane’s hand into hers, immediately starting forward in a confident glide. Well, Valkyrie does. Jane just kind of lurches along on newborn colt legs.  
  
“I saw it, you know—entire universes contained in these little bird bones,” Valkyrie says, guiding her over a giant slab of ceiling. “They may think you’re yourself again, that the stones left you, but I know better. You’d never think to look at you, but even now there’s something still there.”  
  
Jane feels a pulsing deep within her— _blueyellowpurpleorangegreenblueRED_ —and clears her throat. “You might not be wrong.”  
  
“It’s been known to happen on very special occasions,” Valkyrie laughs, deep, from her belly, and the white paint on her face seems to dance. Jane can’t help but grin. “Ah, there it is. Now I see.”  
  
She tilts her head, curious. This could either be really good or really bad. “There what is?”  
  
Valkyrie’s grin tempers into something wistful, like watching dandelion clocks blow into the horizon, gone forever, left only with the bare stem. “He would speak fondly of you, particularly when we flew past clusters of stars—said you knew all of them by name, that he would have taken you to meet them if he’d had the chance. I knew someone who smiled like that, someone for whom all the stars sang. She was so very strong, so clever. Beautiful, like you.”  
  
Jane’s entire face goes warm and she ducks her head to hide it. “Thank you.”  
  
“Of course, she didn’t have the stupid—” Valkyrie takes her hand away to wiggle her fingers at her forehead, then gives Jane’s bangs a pitying look.  
  
Jane sighs.  
  
“Don’t worry. We all look ridiculous every now and again. Take the great Asgardian fool over there. He’s a shambles.”  
  
Huh. “I thought his hair looked pretty good, actually.” Wait. “Haven’t you told him that you don’t like it? Aren’t you and he…”  
  
“Oh, we were for a bit,” Valkyrie says with a shrug, all good cheer. “The adrenaline, the newness, but… it wasn’t what either of us thought it would be. He was in search of what he left behind. He wanted a grand love, and I… wasn’t ready for another one just yet.”  
  
Hope is the worst four-letter word that Jane can think of, and it stirs to life in her chest, rotating fast, throwing off beams into the cosmos. She can’t be saying what Jane _hopes_ she’s saying.  
  
As if privy to her thoughts, Valkyrie throws Jane a wink and then pushes her forward so hard that she stumbles into a brick wall. “Hey, your highness, special delivery.”  
  
The brick wall turns. Standing beside Thor is Loki, who gives Jane a look so calculating that she almost spits out a number result. He hums, thoughtful. "'Jane Star-Learner.'"  
  
She sucks in a breath.  
  
A slow grin breaks over Loki's face as he murmurs, "Huh," before he turns and slaps Thor’s ear, feinting around the swing that Thor takes in retribution. He glides over to where Tony is now _shouting_ something about Siberia over the comms, and then drapes himself like an evil scarf around Tony's shoulders.  
  
Valkyrie moves to join them, but not before she cranes her head back to grin at Jane, who can do nothing but admire the picture of confident beauty that she paints. “Grand loves are for idiots, you know. You’d better make him work for it.”  
  
She and Thor stare after her, and then Jane cracks the fuck up because, “Oh my god, we can never introduce her to Darcy.”  
  
Thor cackles, his throat full of what sounds like dust and glass, but he bends at the waist and laughs into his knees. “Never. _Never_. The universe wouldn’t survive it.”  
  
For a second, it’s just like it used to be: with them in the kitchen failing at making cupcakes because it’s so much better to just grab two spoons to eat the batter, and someone’s said something hilarious to break the silence, and then they’re laughing into each other’s mouths.  
  
A tentative smile curls his lips and he holds out a hand for her. “Walk with me?”  
  
“Isn’t most of the street… destroyed?” Not that she doesn’t want to.  
  
At that, Thor positively beams. “Funny thing happened earlier. This woman became a living, breathing universe and fixed not only the street but, from what I understand, the rest of reality.”  
  
Jane makes a face and looks around. “Why didn’t I fix this place, then?”  
  
“That… is a good question,” Thor admits. As if on cue, one of the last sections of the far left wall gives up the ghost and crumbles to the floor with a loud crash. The raccoon blames the walking tree—loudly and at great length. “I don’t know. Why didn’t you?”  
  
“I honestly don’t remember most of it, which is probably for the best. I think I went all crazy Galadriel there for a second,” Jane says with a sigh.  
  
They fall into a comfortable silence and walk until they reach a part of the Met that is still somewhat standing. From what Jane can tell, it was the home of an exhibition about dogs. She accidentally kicks a broken figurine across the floor.  
  
Finally, Thor comes to a stop and Jane follows suit. He visibly steels himself against whatever’s about to come out of his mouth and Jane suddenly wishes she hadn’t tossed away the diadem because she’s going to need it to spare herself this.  
  
“You let me go,” he says quietly, and it’s both a question and an accusation. “You stood there while I broke us and you let me go.”  
  
Damn. True to form, Thor comes right out swinging. Jane closes her eyes and pushes back the shiver of tears that threatens to crawl up her throat. “Your father came to see me and he… made some good points. I couldn’t be the thing that held you back from doing what you had to to save lives. I didn’t want to be—”  
  
“If you say ‘selfish’, I swear I will… I don’t know. Do something suitably dramatic.” He looks so serious that she chokes on a wet laugh. “I’m not kidding. Jane, you’re the least selfish person I know.”  
  
“Dramatic, huh?” She wipes her eyes and can’t stop snickering.  
  
“Embarrassingly so, according to my brother, who is very good at casting stones from his glass castle,” Thor mutters. The hard line of his shoulders shudders, then goes loose. It’s a defeated pose, one not meant to be worn by someone like him, so it just looks wrong. Like an ill-fitted suit, or a child playing dress-up. “I knew my mind had been addled by something—I could _feel_ the compulsion, but I couldn’t fight through it. I didn't want to… which I suppose was my father's intent, but I should have. I shouldn’t have ever walked out that door. I’m so sorry, Jane.”  
  
She heaves a sigh and smiles, and all at once the year of infinite sorrow dissipates like smoke. It’s such a huge relief that she feels like she could fly again. “Thor, don’t be sorry. I’m not. Look at what you accomplished, who you’ve met, who you _got back_. You got your brother back, you met Valkyrie, you… you saved your people. You wouldn’t have been able to do that if you were still sitting on our couch watching _Stranger Things_.”  
  
He jolts, then asks urgently, “Did season 2 air?”  
  
“It did,” she says with a nod. “And it was even better than the first one.”  
  
“I’ll catch up. I have to know what happens to El.” Then he remembers what the whole point of this walk was and brings it down a notch. “It’s true that I’ve accomplished much, but… what about you, Jane?”  
  
She shrugs. “What _about_ me? I didn’t spend the whole year crying over you—only about 20% of it.” He doesn’t laugh. He couldn’t look more miserable than if he’d had his other eye torn out. “I picked up and carried on, Thor. I continued my work, I became friends with Tony, I was nominated for a Nobel—”  
  
“You were?” His eye shines and he immediately comes over to place his hands on her shoulders, gently shaking her in excitement. “Jane, that is _amazing_ —”  
  
“I didn’t win.”  
  
“That doesn’t matter. Your work was finally recognized.” He looks so genuinely happy for her. She ducks her head to hide the giant-ass smile that she can’t keep off her face. “I always knew you could do it.”  
  
“Thank you,” she whispers, eyes hot, cheeks burning. “That means a lot coming from you. You were the driving force for so much of it.”  
  
“Not true. Only about 20% of it.”  
  
She cry-laughs and doesn’t fight it when he brings her into his arms, just rests her forehead against his ridiculous chest and breathes him in. This is better than any medal, any diadem spat out by existence itself. That hollow space inside her caves in, filling up, and the landscape is still uneven but for the most part it’s whole. It can be crossed without the threat of falling into a chasm.  
  
Thor drops his chin into her hair, the way he used to. “Now what?”  
  
She snorts. “I don’t know. I’m just glad you’re here, and that you’re okay.”  
  
“Likewise.”  
  
This is the man she hit with her car—twice—who gave her the stars in return for the promise of a new life with her on Earth. This is the man she waited three years for. This is the man she loved so much that she let go of him, set him free. This is also the man for whom she didn’t change, didn’t compromise herself. In the face of this knowledge, there’s only one thing left to say. “I don’t need you, Thor. I never did.”  
  
He goes very still against her. “Jane—”  
  
The smile stretched across her face is so big it hurts, and the tears beading on her lashes make the world swim as though it were stretching between entire universes. “But I want you, and I choose you, and I love you. I always have and I always will, and if that’s something you still want, then I’m in. I’m all in. Meddling parents, mad titans, end of the world scenarios—whatever it takes. I’m in for good.”  
  
Thor reaches up and slides his big hand to cup her jaw. It’s terrifying how easily he could break her. “Come with me. When the clean up is done, when the world is truly back to rights, come roam the stars with me.”  
  
She gapes at him. “I can't just leave my work behind, Thor. The apartment, Darcy, Erik—”  
  
“Be selfish, Jane.” He’s grinning, giddy with it, practically vibrating in place. His enthusiasm has always been a joy to behold, but this is just—incandescence. “You’ve always wanted to and now you can. Be selfish, and come with me.”  
  
When she dreamed of a future with him, it was always grounded here. Maybe marriage, maybe kids. Maybe they’d carry on as they had been, her with the work and him with the little distractions that Earth had to offer. Never did she allow herself to look up and think, _what if we could?_ _  
_ _  
_ He tightens his hold on her a bit, urgent, filled to the brim with hope, as if he can’t stand to wait another minute. “ _Well?_ ”  
  
Red.  
  
First and foremost, red.  
  
_Be selfish, Jane Star-Learner._ _  
_ _  
_ Breathing out a laugh, she reaches up and slots their mouths together. He opens to her, catches her bottom lip with his teeth, and it’s messy and familiar and desperate. God, to feel his tongue again, his slick mouth parted with want, is better than the best cosmic mystery she could ever solve.  
  
_Be selfish._  
  
She breaks the kiss and presses close, knocks her forehead against his, and grins.  
  
Maybe just this once.  
  
“When do we leave?”

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted to tumblr in January 2018 as _[Jane Foster Saves The Universe](http://rcmclachlan.tumblr.com/post/170024137812/headcanon-jane-foster-saves-the-universe)_.
> 
> [Check out this incredible fanart](http://alacrity-alacritous.tumblr.com/post/183125626982/look-at-this-amazing-commission-i-received-through) by [hundredthousands](http://hundredthousands.tumblr.com) for Marvel Trumps Hate, as commissioned by [alacrity-alacritous](http://alacrity-alacritous.tumblr.com/)!


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